Ice Age (film)
Ice Age is a 2002 computer animated film and the first feature film produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the first installment of the ''Ice Age'' francine. The film follows three Paleolithical mammals attempting to return a lost human baby to its parents. The film stars Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, and Chris Wedge. It was released in theatres March 15th 2002. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and audiences alike and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It was also a box office success, grossing $176 million in the domestic market and earning a worldwide total of $383 million. Plot The film begins with a saber-toothed squirrel who is trying to find somewhere to store his prized acorn. Eventually, as he tries to stomp it into the ground, he causes a large crack in the ground that extends for miles and miles and sets off a large avalanche. He barely escapes, but finds himself stepped on by a herd of prehistoric animals. The animals are trying to avoid the ice age by migrating south. Sid, a clumsy Megalonyx sloth left behind by his family, is attacked by two Brontops whom he angered. Sid is soon saved by Manfred, an agitated mammoth who fights them off. Not wanting to be alone and unprotected, Sid follows Manny. Meanwhile, Soto, the leader of a Smilodon pride wants revenge on a group of humans by eating the chief's baby son, Roshan, alive. Soto leads a raid on the human camp, during which Roshan's mother is separated from the rest and jumps down a waterfall when cornered by Soto's lieutenant, Diego. For his failure, Diego is sent to find and retrieve the baby. Sid and Manny spot Roshan and his mother near the lake, having survived her plunge. The mother only has enough strength to trust her baby to Manny before she disappears. After much persuasion by Sid, they decide to return Roshan but when they reach the human settlement, they find it deserted. They meet up with Diego, who convinces the pair to let him help by tracking the humans. The four travel on, with Diego secretly leading them to his pack for an ambush. While having small adventures on their way, they reach a cave where Sid and Diego learn about Manny's past and his previous interactions with the humans, in which his wife and son were killed, leaving Manny a cynical loner. At one time the group passes a flying saucer frozen in the ice, while Sid comes upon a display showing the evolution of sloths. At the end of the film, Diego, Manny and Sid battle Soto's pack and a short fight ensues. As Soto closes in for the kill on Manny, Diego leaps and stops Soto, who wounds Diego in the process. Manny, in vengeance, knocks Soto into a rock wall, causing several sharp icicles to fall on Soto, killing him. Manny and Sid manage to return the baby to his tribe, and Diego rejoins them, as the group begins to head off to warmer climates. Cast The characters are all prehistoric animals. The animals can talk to and understand each other and are voiced by a variety of famous actors. Like many films of prehistoric life, the rules of time periods apply very loosely, as many of the species shown in the film never actually lived in the same time periods or the same geographic regions. Main * Ray Romano as Manfred "Manny", a woolly mammoth and the main proagonist * John Leguizamo as Sid, a giant ground sloth and the deuteragonist * Denis Leary as Diego, a Smilodon and the tritagonist * Goran Visnjic Soto, a Smilodon and the main antagonist * Jack Black as Zeke, a Smilodon and the fourth antagonist * Diedrich Bader as Oscar, a Smilodon and the tertiary antagonist * Alan Tudyk as Lenny, a Smilodon and the secondary antagonist Minor * Chris Wedge as Scrat, a fictional squirrel * Cedric the Entertainer as Carl, a Brontops * Stephen Root as Frank, a Brontops * Jane Krakowski as Rachel, a female sloth * Lorri Bagley as Jennifer, a female sloth * Kristen Johnston as sylvia, a female sloth Production Development Ice Age was originally intended to be a dramatic, non-comedic hand-drawn animated film. It was to be directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman and produced by Fox Animation Studios. However, in 2000, Fox Animation Studios shut down due to the financial failure of Titan A.E., Don Bluth and Gary Goldman turned down the opportunity to direct the film. Blue Sky Studios got the opportunity with the Ice Age script to turn it into a computer animated comedy, Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha took over as the directors. Supposedly the reason Don Bluth refused to make the film is when 20th Century Fox said they wanted it to be CGI after the failure of 2D animation, Bluth refused due to his personal hate for fully CG animation and angrily walked away from the project. The drama was also dropped from the film because Fox would only accept it as a comedy. However, the drama aspect was kept in a notable element of the film, referring to it as a dramedy. Writing and character development Writer Michael J. Wilson stated on his blog that his daughter Flora came up with the idea for an animal that was a mixture of both squirrel and rat, naming it Scrat, and that the animal was obsessed with pursuing his acorn. Chris Wedge, director, is the voice of Scrat, but has no intelligible dialogue; the plan to have Scrat talk was quickly dropped, as he worked better as a silent character for comedic effect. The name 'Scrat' is a combination of the words 'squirrel' and 'rat', as Scrat has characteristics of both species; Wedge has also called him Scrat's opening adventure was inserted because, without it, the first real snow and ice sequence wouldn't take place until about 37 minutes into the film. This was the only role intended for Scrat, but he proved to be such a popular character with test audiences that he was given more scenes, and has appeared in other movies. Diego, the saber-tooth tiger character originally died near the end of the film. However, it was reported that kids in the test audience bursted into tears when his death was shown. Denis Leary himself warned the producers that something like this would happen. When it was proven true, the scene was re-written to ensure Diego survived. Originally, Sid was supposed to be a con-artist sloth and a hustler, and there were even two finished scenes of the character conning some aardvark kids and a very suggestive scene with two female sloths later in the movie. His character was later changed to a talkative sloth was the team felt the audience would have hated him. Sid was also supposed to have a female sloth named Sylvia chasing after him, whom he despised and kept ditching, however all of her scenes were removed. All the removed scenes of her can be seen on the DVD. Casting For mammoth Manny, the studio was initially looking at people with big voices. James Earl Jones and Ving Rhames were considered, but they sounded too obvious and Wedge wanted more comedy. Instead, the role was given to Ray Romano because they thought his voice sounded very elephant-like. Wedge described Romano's voice as John Leguizamo was cast as Sid, he tried 30 different voices for Sid. After viewing a documentary about sloths, he learned that they store food in their mouths; this led to him wondering what he would sound like with food in his mouth. After attempting to speak as if he had food in his mouth, he decided that it was the perfect voice for Sid. All the actors were encouraged to improvise as much as possible to help keep the animation spontaneous. Animation Blue Sky Studios had engineers on its staff who understand the physics of sound and light and how these elements will affect movement in characters. The responsibility for animating Sid's snowboard sequence was given to animators who went snowboarding in real life. Release Box office The film was released on March 15, 2002, and had a $46.3 million opening weekend, a large number not usually seen until the summer season, and way ahead of Fox's most optimistic projection of about $30 million. Ice Age broke the record for a March opening and was the then-third-best opening ever for an animated feature—after Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story 2. Ice Age finished its domestic box office run with $176,387,405 and grossed $383,257,136 worldwide, being the 9th highest gross of 2002 in North America and the 8th best worldwide at the time. Critical reaction Ice Age was met with generally positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film 77% approval rating, based on 164 reviews. The site's consensus reads: Similar site Metacritic had a score of 60% out of 31 reviews. The film was nominated an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but lost to Spirited Away. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and wrote CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave Ice Age an average grade of on an A+ to F scale. Home media Ice Age was released on DVD, VHS and D-Theater on November 26, 2002. Both releases included a short film Gone Nutty, featuring Scrat from the film. The film was released on Blu-ray on March 4, 2008, and beside Gone Nutty, it included 9 minutes of deleted scenes. Awards Academy Awards, USA 2003 AARP Movies for Grownups Awards 2003 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA 2003 Annie Awards 2003 Awards Circuit Community Awards 2002 BMI Film & TV Awards 2002 Bogey Awards, Germany 2002 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2003 DVD Exclusive Awards 2003 Gold Derby Awards 2003 Golden Schmoes Awards 2002 International Online Cinema Awards (INOCA) 2003 Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists 2003 Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards 2002 Kids' Choice Awards, USA 2003 Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA 2003 Online Film & Television Association 2003 Online Film Critics Society Awards 2003 Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards 2003 Satellite Awards 2003 Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards 2002 Young Artist Awards 2003 Sequels Ice Age has seen 4 Sequels. *The first sequel, Ice Age: The Meltdown was released March 31st 2006. The film focuses on the gang racing to escape an impending flood. *The second sequel, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was released July 1st 2009. The film focuses on the gang discovering dinosaurs underground. *The third sequel, Ice Age: Continental Drift was released July 13th 2012, ten years after the original. The film focuses on the gang surviving the continental drift on Earth. *A fourth sequel, Ice Age: Collision Course was released July 22nd 2016. The plot focuses on the gang facing some cosmic adventures. Other media A video game based on the film was released on the GBA. Cartoon Network Website Promotion Cartoon Network promoted Ice Age with commercials for the Frozen Fantasy Sweepstakes in 2002, and the Ice Age video game for the GBA was the prize. The sweepstakes was at CartoonNetwork.com, but expired on March 18, 2002. Trivia *Chris Wedge regretted not putting Bunny as an easter egg in the film. *Most of the characters in the sequels were intended to be in this film but were scrapped and used later. *After the failure of Titan A.E. (a film made by 20th Century Fox) this film became a huge success. *Sid was originally going to be a sneaky contain like sloth who'd rip off other animals, but instead was made into what he is today. *The film was originally going to be longer, but it was shortened. *Sylvia was scrapped from the film, But she appeared in Trailers final cut and Deleted Scenes. *John Leguizamo, who voiced Sid, previously voiced Gune. *This Is The Second 20th Century Fox film to be composed by David Newman, The First Was Anastasia. *This is Blue Sky Studios' first film not to be scored by John Powell, as the film was scored by David Newman. *When The Film Aired On Nick And NickAtNite The On My Way Song (From the Travel Clip) Was Shortened. **This might be possibly because travel montages are boring. **Another possible reason is the film was too make the time for a 90 minute movie. *This was the first film to use Blue Sky Studios shield logo. *This is first Blue Sky Studios film to be rated PG by the MPAA. *The Animation Is Very Different Than The Other Films. *This was The Only Blue Sky Studios film "Twentieth Century Fox presents" credit, *This is the only film in the Ice Age series to received positive reviews. Gallery Ice_Age.jpg|Theatrical release poster 148141.jpg|scrat vlcsnap-2016-11-23-21h18m57s844.png|sid vlcsnap-2016-11-23-21h19m08s915.png|manny Diego_(Ice_Age).png|Diego References Category [[Category:Ice Age films Category:Ice Age Category:Movies Category:Based On